By Denis Campbell

As Chancellor of the Washington DC Public School system, Michelle Rhee, 38, has tipped public education on its end in Washington, DC gaining a lot of high-powered fans and a few enemies. She was an unwitting reference during the 3rd Presidential debate as John McCain and Barack Obama disagreed on whether or not Michelle Rhee supported school vouchers. The Teacher’s Union calls her policies “scorched earth” and the Head of Parents United for DC Schools says parents and the community have “been cut out of DC Schools.”

To whip all sides into such a fury means she must be doing something right in my book. Rhee though doesn’t have to worry too much what people think because the man who gave her the job and mandate is the District’s youthful new mayor, Adrian Malik Fenty, 36. He was raised in a DC rowhouse, knows how badly the system was broken and “has her back.”

Ms. Rhee’s parents emigrated to the US from Korea in 1960 and her performance earned her an undergraduate degree at Columbia University and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s prestigious Kennedy School of Government. Fresh out of Harvard she joined the highly touted “Teach for America,” created by Wendy Kopp. In this program, some of the nation’s most promising future leaders commit to teach in low income schools for two years giving students in those schools both short-term impact and the nation a corps of lifelong leaders pursuing educational equality. Almost 18,000 seniors applied last year for 500 placements.

Leaving TFA, in 1997 she founded the New Teacher Project and set about recruiting 10,000 teachers in twenty states over 10-years. Now she wants DC public schools to raise expectation levels at schools. Said Rhee on an interview with NBC News, “They have the ability to rise to any level of expectation you set for them. We are going to rid the system of structures that allow us to put the rights and privileges of adults ahead of what’s in the best interest of kids.” 

She is a no-nonsense administrator bringing controversial methods to shake up the moribund Washington DC School system. She is also shaking up the HQ culture by arriving unannounced and unsupported to inspect schools. She raises eyebrows by suggesting paying kids when they learn, hates waste, inefficiency and bloated administrations. 

NBC described her in their segment opening as having a “silky smooth style, (but) make no mistake this lady is a killer.” She has closed 21-schools, fired 11% of the bureaucrats and sacked 270-teachers she deemed under-performers. 

I’ve often said in many a management seminar that “it is the sacred cows of a company or department mindset that make the best burgers.” She’s going after the most sacred of those – lifetime teacher tenure. She has this quaint notion that we should dump bad teachers and reward good ones with huge salaries.

The local union, The American Federation of Teachers, is quite scared. When I see a union decry a policy as “scorched earth” in these economic times it is usually a sign someone is being held accountable in the public sector where they would not last 10-minutes in the private. 

The DC School system was a disaster when I lived just outside the district in the 90’s. I cannot imagine it improved. Years of neglect after a series of seeming banana republic third world mayors, including a horrific series of years when Marion Barry treated the city as his personal play-toy of patronage and abuse, left the District in financial and governing tatters. Now with serious leadership in the Mayor’s Office and school system, change is coming to the school and the city.

She wastes little time trying to charm critics on the City Council or anyone else. What’s needed now she says is a vast unwillingness to compromise. “The vast majority of these are kids done wrong by this system and by this City and by this country for their entire lives and I see a clear path for how to change that.”

As for the vouchers question in the Presidential debate, Rhee’s office released a statement that said, “While Chancellor Rhee hasn’t taken a formal position on vouchers, she disagrees with the notion that vouchers are the remedy for repairing the city’s school system.

No quick fixes here and wouldn’t it be great if DC went from worst to first in this league table. 

You Go Michelle!